Seville, (EFE) to the protection of the National Park, with a threat from the Government to take the matter to the Constitutional Court.
The PP has presented this Friday a text that modifies that of the last legislature and that incorporates, among other points, a technical office that will analyze “case by case” to see if it is an irrigable area. Those lands that meet the legal requirements could later request surface water, when some pending hydraulic works allow it.
The new initiative, which will be processed urgently in Parliament, would be approved in the current session, which ends in July, so at least a large part of the process would coincide with the months remaining until the 28M elections. .
The central government asked the Junta de Andalucía last Monday not to present the initiative in Parliament and has reacted immediately to its registration. He has described the proposed law as “an outrage” and has warned that he will take any action that puts Doñana at risk to the Constitutional Court.
park protection
The central and regional executives collide again over the same issue as a year ago, despite the fact that the text has been modified. In 2022 the initiative was supported by PP, Cs and Vox and the controversy reached the European institutions, concerned about the future of the wetland.
In total, there are more than 1,500 hectares of agriculture that are currently out of irrigated land management in the Doñana environment, which affects some 10,000 families, according to the PP, who believes that not all of them would meet the legal regulation requirements .
After the important controversy generated by the previous initiative due to the possible impact on Doñana and its aquifer, the new text makes an important argument about the protection of the National Park, with an eye on the European level above all.
The text, which according to the PP has been communicated to Brussels, states that this initiative manages to “lay the foundations to protect more and better” the Doñana National Park, since the objective is to legislate so that surface water can reach these farmers , “because only by reaching the surface water will it be possible to protect the park and its aquifer.”
In addition, the initiative establishes a series of water works of interest to the autonomous community and modifies the Andalusian forestry law to adapt it to state regulations, which grants a special regime for areas that historically had agricultural uses but forestry crops were implanted. to reverse the use when the cycle of forest exploitation ends.
The Government rejects the initiative head-on
The PP defends that in this regard a “cut and paste” has been made of what the Ministry of Ecological Transition was asking for on the forestry law, to gather their support. In addition, he has assured that there were two meetings between the Board and the Ministry, although without an agreement.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has assured that “it has not negotiated, much less has it reached any agreement” with PP and Vox to “increase irrigation in Doñana, as they intend to show in the bill they have registered” .
He has warned that increasing irrigation in these areas, “close” to the Doñana National Park, “would further damage an area already seriously affected by drought.”
The Government has denounced that this law on irrigation “contempts” the role of the Doñana Participation Council and has defended that it should be processed by the Andalusian Government as a bill, so that the competent administrations and bodies can deliver reports.
For his part, the Andalusian Minister of Sustainability and Government spokesman, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, stressed that the solutions for farmers “never involve obtaining a single liter from the Doñana aquifer” because it will always have to be surface water when are available, “and if they are not, the problem will not be solved”.
He has insisted that this proposal “speaks of reorganization of the territory” and of creating a monitoring office to “ensure compliance with all the commitments that public administrations have with Doñana.”
The PSOE of Andalusia has also denied that the PP has negotiated with them about irrigation and has assured that it has not done so either “with other administrations, or with the territory, or with anyone”, since they have only transferred the text, ” But nothing more”.
Environmentalists denounce an amnesty
Vox has defended that the new bill “will put an end to ten years of ordeal” for the farmers of the Corona Norte of the County of Huelva, whom it regrets that they have been treated as “water thieves”.
WWF has demanded the withdrawal of the law on irrigation in Doñana, because it is “as serious and unacceptable as the previous one” and they understand it as a “new attempt to amnesty illegal irrigators before the municipal elections.”
SEO/BirdLife has also lamented the “effort” of the Andalusian Government to “amnestiate the illegal irrigation that flourishes in the Doñana forest crown”, something that they believe “threatens” their existence.
Ecologists in Action has criticized the electoral interest of the measure and has warned that “a disorderly explosion of irrigation in the province of Huelva” is hidden, since “there is no water for the legal ones in Doñana and, evidently, there will not be water to expand soils for irrigation. EFE